Blog by Lucy Courtenay

Drawing a Blank

I have a white board! I’d love to wax lyrical about this exciting development in my writing life but essentially it’s white and it’s a board and not even I can find much else to say about it at the moment. BUT, as Bob Hale would say, NOT FOR LONG!

You see, I have written myself into a computerised corner with my new project and have discovered an urgent need for a PLANNING TOOL that I can see without opening tabs (not on cans of beer though that is tempting) and flipping from screen to screen in a WHAT AM I DOING I’LL HAVE A BISCUIT AND THINK ABOUT IT HOPELESSLY kind of way. It’s a little embarrassing, to find myself at this juncture 30,000 words in. Also ironic, as I spend much of my editorial time urging other authors to plan BEFORE they start. Quite.

Unlike my usual projects, which have word counts ranging from 6,000 to 35,000 words, this honey needs to weigh in at around 80,000 words, and my usual habit of holding plot arcs in my head like a host of imaginary spinning plates is presently letting me down with lots of similarly imaginary crunching noises and illusory ceramic splinters up my fingernails. So, a white board it is.

Look! I’ve got a title and everything!

Brilliant! Why haven’t I thought of this before? I want 40 chapters, each around 2,000 words long. Lots of little boxes then, with different-coloured arrows from one to the next. Off I go!